Nintendo Gamecube and Wii emulator Dolphin has made some big progress in the past few months. So big, in fact, that Wes Fenlon saw fit to write a cool feature article over at PC Gamer on the massive performance boosts brought on by Fiora Aeterna's contributions. The Dolphin team put together its own progress reports to highlight the gains, and also the new features and bug fixes. They've got posts up on August, September, and October. If you've been holding out on Dolphin for any reason, now's the time to dive in. New development builds are flying out of the compiler.

While I'm sending you off to read interesting articles about emulation, I might as well throw in David "Haze" Haywood's blog, which always picks out notable changes and discoveries in MAME and MESS development (or UME, if you're running it through Wine or virtualisation) — both in terms of emulation and hardware preservation.

Speaking of MAME and MESS, they're now at version 0.155. As always, the list of changes is huge for MAME and slightly less-huge for MESS. Would-be contributors and those of you who compile from source note that the code repository is now on GitHub. For everyone else, the OS X SDL ports are still available here. And if you want a proper frontend and launcher, QMC2 is all synced up with the latest builds. As is MAME Launcher.

CodeWeavers has released version 14.0.0 (since updated to 14.0.1) of its commercial Wine-based Windows application/game wrapper tool CrossOver. Besides Yosemite compatibility, this release overhauls the user interface — with shortcuts in the dock and the CrossOver app for individual Windows apps drawing particular attention in the announcement. There are new supported apps as well, including Terraria, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Cube World, and Path of Exile.

Continue reading for more emulator updates, including back-from-the-dead JOYCE and double updates to Stella and VirtualBox, among others.

PlayStation Portable emulator PPSSPP has been updated to version 0.9.9.1. This fixes a few issues discovered in the 0.9.9 release, which added support for the mp3 and aac codecs and PMP video format, fixed a number of graphical issues by adding CLUT/paletted texturing from framebuffers, improved vrot CPU instruction emulation, and much more. Mac builds are still not officially supported, and the angelXwind site that normally hosts unofficial builds seems to be down, but PPSSPP forum-goer slavezeo put together a script that can be used to compile the emulator with only a little modification.

Nintendo Wii and Gamecube emulator Dolphin apparently received hundreds of code optimisations in July, resulting in big performance improvements, fixes to long-standing bugs, and even a few new features. Read the typically-fascinating Progress Report for a rundown of the most notable changes. They've also got a review up on the Dolphin blog for the Mayflash DolphinBar, which is a USB sensor bar designed to work with Dolphin and as a mouse replacement. If you're after new builds, there's a steady flow of automated development versions appearing every day.

It's been a long time coming, but ScummVM 1.7.0 was released in July. Five new games are supported, including 1996 claymation The Neverhood. Changes include "many" improvements to the UI, an OpenGL backend and enhanced AGOS engine, and updated MT-32 emulation. You can read a full breakdown of the changes in the release notes. Get it from the ScummVM download page.

Continue reading for more updates, including GBA on Bizhawk, loads of FS-UAE development builds, new Hatari, and more.

(I had this one half-done three weeks ago, and only just now got a chance to wrap it up. Hopefully we'll be back to a monthly schedule on these from here on out.)

Arcade emulator MAME has been updated to version 0.153. This release brings big changes under the hood, with major revisions made to modernise the core, user interface, OSD layers, drivers, and devices. Be sure to read through the What’s New document for a detailed rundown if you’re at all interested in the project and/or its goals. As always, you can get more general information and source code from the MAMEDev website, and there’s a Mac-specific binary on the SDLMAME site.

Multiple system emulator MESS has also been bumped up to version 0.153, with the most notable additions being support for 1979 console Bandai Super Vision 8000, the UK Apple IIe models, Serbian computer Pecom 32, and two systems I’ve never heard of: the Samsung Gam*Boy I and AIWA MegaCD CSD-GIM. See here for the full list of changes, and here for 32-bit and 64-bit SDLMESS binaries.

Macintosh II A/UX emulator Shoebill is making great progress. Developer Peter Rutenbar is reporting that A/UX 3.0.0 now runs, although there are still some issues. 0.0.2 boasts modest speed improvements and bug fixes, and it removes the need to supply your own kernel. You can download it or grab the latest source code at GitHub. Keep an eye on the E-Maculation Shoebill thread if you're interested in the project. Next up will be A/UX 3.0.1 support (maybe).

After years of development, OpenEmu, the frontend to rule them all, is finally out in an official capacity. Combining Apple-like skeuomorphic design and polish with iTunes-style ROM organisation, support for a plethora of gamepads, and a plugin system that integrates individual emulator engines as “cores”, OpenEmu mostly (it has its flaws, I’d argue) lives up to expectations as the emulator for the rest of us. The official release (available here) comes in two flavours: a 1.0 build with around a dozen 8-bit and 16-bit consoles supported, and an experimental build that adds a bunch more systems and cores (including PSP, Saturn, and N64) that aren’t quite stable enough for the prime time. Congrats to Mucx and company on the overwhelmingly positive reception it’s had so far.

Nintendo 64 emulator Sixtyforce has been updated to version 0.9.8. This release brings Retina support, PAL video timing, a new full screen mode, loads of bug fixes, and “several” major optimisations. Download it from the official Sixtyforce website, and remember to register to encourage Gerrit to take more time out of his acting career to work on it.

After yet another lengthy delay, Sega Saturn emulator Yabause is back with a big release obscured by an incremental version number. Yabause 0.9.13 adds support for mdf/mds dumps, CD+G, and the Saturn mouse and 3D control pad. It also improves the user interface and emulation, gets Netlink up and running, adds SH2 debugging features, and fixes CD audio emulation. The devs are actively recruiting translators and technical writers to help out, too. Learn about all this, and more, at the Yabause website.

Continue reading for Mac floppy emulator hardware and more updates, including new PPSSPP, Sweet16, Mednafen, Mini vMac, and more.

The two big guns in Windows or Linux on Mac virtualisation released their yearly upgrades in the previous month. Parallels Desktop 9 includes support for Thunderbolt and FireWire devices, OS X’s PowerNap feature, the Mountain Lion Dictionary gesture, Windows 8.1, and more, all while boasting 40% better disk performance, 25% faster shutdowns, 20% faster suspending, and 3D graphics that’s 15% faster than in Parallels 8. You can buy/trial it and learn more at Parallels’ Desktop product site.

VMware Fusion 6, meanwhile, adds Dictation in Windows; support for up to 16 vCPUs, 8TB disks, and 64GB of RAM; a new user interface; improved Boot Camp support; multiple display support (in OS X Mavericks); Windows 8.1 support; and the usual host of performance improvements and minor feature additions. You can check out all its new features, and try it out, by visiting the VMware Fusion product page.

Nintendo Wii and Gamecube emulator Dolphin version 4.0 came out today. It’s the first stable release in nine months, bringing 2500 changes from Dolphin 3.5 — including a new look (and swanky new icon), beta support for the Wii official online multiplayer, Wii Balance Board and Gamecube Steering Wheel support, new audio emulation code, Fastmem support on OS X, an OpenGL video backend rewrite, and much more. You can get it from the Dolphin download page, while the announcement post is here.

After a long period (three years) without an official release, Sony PlayStation emulator PCSX-Reloaded has been updated to version 1.9.93 beta. People who’ve been using SpeedofMac/ConsoleEmu’s unofficial builds won’t notice much of a difference, but it’s a huge improvement over 1.9.92. See the release notes here for details.

Continue reading for additional updates, including new versions of Mednafen, Q-emuLator, zxsp, PPSSPP, and more.

There’s a new Nintendo 64 emulator on the block. I don’t know how Daedalus compares to Mupen64Plus or SixtyForce, as I couldn’t get it to run after compiling, but it looks to be under active development. You can grab the source from the Daedalus GitHub page. Let us know how it performs if you get it working.

ScummVM, an interpreter for dozens of classic point-and-click adventure games, has been updated to version 1.6.0. This release adds four new engines, which adds support for such titles as Eye of the Beholder and The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime. Other changes include improved support for Macintosh versions of a few games, an update to the Roland MT-32 emulation code, a grid chooser for save games, three new translations, and more. See the release notes for more details, and grab ScummVM from its downloads page.

Arcade emulator MAME reached version 0.149 a few days ago. As usual, this update includes a raft of fixes, additions, and tweaks. There’s a detailed change log if you want to see precisely what’s new. You can grab the source code from the MAMEdev site, or grab 32-bit or 64-bit Intel binaries from the SDLMAME site.

There's a new emulator for us to play with! QDAE, a multi-platform Quick and Dirty Apricot Emulator, emulates the Apricot F1, Xi, and Portable, as well as the Wang Professional Computer. The current version, 0.0.8, supports emulation of the 8086 processor, the infrared keyboard and mouse, the screen, floppy drives, up to two hard drives (why are they called Winchester disks?), and the support chipset. Be warned, however, that it is very early in development, and may not work well -- if at all. You can download the source from the QDAE homepage, or grab a binary from Jerome Vernet's Apricot F1 website (the binary is for the older version 0.0.6, at the time of writing).

Previous brings NeXT computer emulation to the Mac, with the 0.3 version released in late January. This update brings partial read compatibility to SCSI disks, but apparently breaks the MMU emulation. Head over to the Previous website to learn more about the emulator or to get a download link.

Commodore 64 emulator micro64 has been updated to version 1.00.2012.01.13 Build 665. I believe this is the first time we've written about micro64, so here's a quick summary of its goals and functions. The developers want micro64 to become the most accurate Commodore 64 emulator available. Development is still in the early pre-alpha stages, with plans for a big GUI overhaul soon. Check out the micro64 website for more information.

After a year of frequent incremental updates (around 2500), Nintendo Wii and Gamecube emulator Dolphin has been bumped up to version 3.0. If you haven't been paying attention since the 2.0 release, Dolphin has ditched the plugin interface in favour of a integrated architecture, in addition to reaching near-perfect audio emulation and much improved levels of performance and accuracy. See the Release Announcement for a more detailed rundown of the changes. You can get a pre-compiled build of version 3.0, as well as the more recent source changes, from the Dolphin download page.